Saturday, November 19, 2016

The Legend of Gunung Ledang revolves around a princess that allegedly lived on Mount Ophir in Johor, Malaysia.

The Sultan had heard of her beauty and wanted to marry her but she set seven impossible conditions for him. The conditions were:

-A golden bridge for her to walk to Malacca from the mountain,

-A silver bridge for her to return from Malacca to the mountain,

-Seven jars of virgin's tears,

-Seven bowls of betel nut juice,

-Seven trays filled with hearts of germs,

-Seven trays filled with hearts of mosquitoes, and

-A bowl of the blood of the Sultan's young son.

Some versions of the legend say that the Sultan was not able to fulfill any of these requests, while others say that he was able to fulfill the first six requests (thus causing the ruin of the Malacca Sultanate) but could not fulfill the final request which would have required him to kill his son. The point of the story is that the Sultan was either too proud or too blind to realise that the conditions were the Puteri's way of turning his proposal down.

Some say that remnants of the gold and silver bridge still exist, but have been reclaimed by the forest.